


our place in the family of things

by radialarch



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: “Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m surprised,” Lovett says. “Out of all the things, it figures you’d be a weredog.”





	our place in the family of things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gdgdbaby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/gifts).



Jon Favreau turns into a dog in the middle of November.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Lovett says. He thought he’d been seeing double when he came into the office: Jon and Leo look pretty much the same, small and golden and friendly. Leo seems kind of alarmed to have gained a twin, actually, bristling from underneath Jon’s usual desk, but Pundit’s taken it really well, and now she and Jon are both at Lovett’s feet, begging to be petted.

Lovett is not taking it nearly as well.

“He did that once in ‘08,” Tommy offers. “After the DNC. Lilian said it happens sometimes. He turned back after a few days.”

“Did I know about this?” Lovett asks. “I feel like I should’ve known about this. I mean, say I didn’t need to know in the White House, fine, whatever. Seems like the kind of thing you’d tell someone before founding a whole company with them, though, don’t you think!”

“Maybe he was worried you’d react badly,” Tommy says dryly, looking down at the dogs. Dog. One dog and one Jon, who’s apparently an involuntary shapeshifter. Pundit’s started butting her head at Lovett’s shin, tired of waiting, but Jon’s ears are drooping. He reaches up to nose apologetically at Lovett’s hand, then sits back with big mournful eyes, radiating woe. It’s  _ridiculous_. Lovett knows when he’s being played.

He gets down on one knee anyway, scratching Pundit behind her ears until she gets distracted by a noise from the kitchen and trots off. “You,” he says sternly when he turns to Jon. “We’re not finished. Further discussion forthcoming when you reacquire opposable thumbs.”

It’s weird to pet your colleague on the head, even when he’s temporarily got four paws and a tail and a thick coat of fur, right? It’s weird. Tommy doesn’t seem to have any qualms about it, though, bending down to stroke a big hand down Jon’s back before he heads off to the studio. Friday’s _Pod Save the World_ , Lovett remembers. Against all odds, the world goes on.

“Look, it’s still Jon,” Tommy tells Lovett, pausing briefly at the door. “Just— think about it like that. Don’t overcomplicate it.”

“Right, I’m the one overcomplicating things,” Lovett says. “Not the guy who changed species without any warning at all. No carrier pigeons. Not a single smoke signal. I see how it is.”

Tommy laughs, the fucker. “Let me do this interview,” he says. “And then we can talk about what to do with the Thursday pod.”

 _The Thursday pod_. Jesus Christ. “You couldn’t have picked a better time?” Lovett asks Jon when Tommy’s left. “No, fine, don’t look at me like that. I know. Involuntary is in the name. Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Out of all the things, it figures you’d be a weredog.” Anyway, it could’ve been worse—Jon could’ve turned in the middle of the tour.

Lovett sighs and gives into the urge to reach out and touch Jon. He’s warm and soft, quivering slightly under the touch. Well, that’s obvious; what else could Lovett have ever expected Jon to be?

“We should work out some kind of signal,” Lovett says, pulling his hand back. “You know, bark once for yes, twice for no, that kind of thing.”

Jon cocks his head at Lovett, then lets out three barks. 

“You guys doing okay?” Tanya’s poking her head through the door. “You know, this was not anywhere in our contracts.”

“I’m being mocked by a dog,” Lovett informs her. “ _That_  wasn’t in the contract, either.”

Jon lifts his head up, tail wagging, and licks at Lovett’s fingers.

———

“Right, so he’s probably out for tomorrow,” Dan says. “How long did it take him last time? Five days?”

Jon’s stretched up with his front paws on the table so he can peer at Skype. They had to get him a chair. It should all look thoroughly ridiculous, but of course Dan’s seen this before. A decade down the line, and Lovett sometimes still feels like he’s being fucked over for not having thrown in with the right candidate from the start.

“Yeah, just about,” Tommy says. “Okay, so it can be the three of us doing the pod. Call it a Monday/Thursday crossover. We’ll say Jon’s out of town; it’s easy to stretch that a little longer if he’s still not back by Monday.”

“Sounds good.” Dan grins through the video. “Good thing you guys already dog-proofed the office. All right, talk to you guys later.”

Jon woofs.

"I cannot believe you guys won the election,” Lovett tells Jon and Tommy when Dan’s signed off. “ _Any_ election. Chief speechwriter turns into a dog for a week and no one bats an eye.”

“Oh, no, we were losing all our shit,” Tommy says cheerfully. “Adam nearly had a breakdown in his cubicle. The Senator was a little offended, I think, he came down to remind us that he’d been writing his own speeches for years.”

“So he did this just the once, right?” Jon’s scrambled down from his chair, and now he’s idly chewing at one of Lovett’s shoelaces. Lovett glances down at him, wonders what it’s like. It’s not one or the other, he read once. The dog instincts are in there, and so is Jon. Lovett doesn’t know which one is the reason Jon’s curled at his feet right now.

“Sounded like it was pretty rare,” Tommy agrees. “I don’t think you have to worry about a repeat performance any time soon. Hey, listen, for tonight: I’d offer to take him and Leo home, but we just got Lucca and she’s not—”

“Are you asking if I can dog-sit?” Lovett says, opening his eyes wide. “Yes, of course. Tommy, I’m a paragon of responsibility. Frankly, I’m deeply wounded at the insinuation that I might refuse—”

“Okay, okay,” Tommy says, laughing, “calm down, I wasn’t trying to impugn your honor. Jon should be pretty good, anyway, he says mostly he gets bored when he’s like this. Turn on Netflix or something.”

“How do you feel about  _Zelda: Breath of the Wild_?” Lovett asks.

Jon stares up at him, then deliberately tugs until Lovett’s laces come loose. He barks twice.

“Watch it, Favreau,” Lovett says, while Tommy snickers at them both. “Unwise to antagonize the person in charge of your dinner plans.”

———

When Lovett gets home, he discovers that Leo refuses to stay in the same room as Jon without barking his head off.

“Okay,” Lovett says when he’s retreated up to his bedroom with Jon and shut the door. “Jesus, Leo, what’s your problem? And you guys call Pundit the noisy one. Now we see what kind of slander that is. She’s an angel and Leo is— hey.”

Jon’s flopped down on the floor, angled toward the door. They can still hear Leo barking, faintly, from downstairs; Jon lets out a soft whine and presses his head down between his paws.

“Oh,” Lovett says. “Hey, Jon, c’mon.” He settles cross-legged on the carpet next to Jon, tries to figure out what to say. He’s not great at comforting people even when they’re bipedal. “It’s not— look, Leo doesn’t know it’s you, right? He misses you, and you’re this new thing and, I mean, I’m not sure it’s fair to ask a dog to grasp the concept that you’re, uh, you.” 

Lovett’s losing track of pronouns by the end of that sentence. Jon lifts his head a fraction, one ear twitching.

“Yeah, I’m calling your dog an idiot,” Lovett says, sighing. “You have any constructive criticism, you can keep it to yourself.”

Jon stares at him a moment longer, and then he’s padding over to Lovett and climbing up over his thighs. “You have  _claws_ ,” Lovett protests, feeling one of them snag in his sweats, but Jon’s insistent. In Lovett’s lap he’s a warm, compact weight, nose wet at the crook of one elbow, and Lovett feels a sudden lump at his throat.

“Yeah, it’s been kind of a shitty day, hasn’t it,” he says, stroking gently at one of Jon’s ears. “How much of this are you going to remember when you come back?”

Jon whuffs softly, curling up even tighter. Lovett’s not sure how he’s gonna get back up if Jon decides to fall asleep like this.

“Want me to read you what our President is saying on Twitter?”

Jon whines twice.

“Okay,” Lovett says. It takes a bit of maneuvering to dig his phone out of his pocket without dislodging Jon. “I’ll just read you all the hot takes about it.”

———

Jon, as a dog, is endlessly demanding of affection. He’ll come up to Lovett at his desk, pushing his head up into Lovett’s hands; fall asleep laid across the tops of Lovett’s shoes; wiggle up into Lovett’s lap every chance he gets. “You’re impossible,” Lovett tells him, but he can’t stop himself from digging his fingers into his soft fur anyway. 

He is, Lovett is aware in the back of his mind, going to regret this whenever Jon turns back. The problem is, Lovett’s never had any self-control when it comes to being loved. 

———

Lovett goes to sleep with Jon curled up beside him Sunday night, and wakes up alone in the morning. “Fuck,” he says up at the ceiling before he rolls out of bed and makes his way down.

Jon’s in the kitchen petting Leo while Leo frantically tries to lick his face. Lovett stares at the curve of his back for a long second before Jon gets to his feet.

“Hey,” Jon says, startled. “Um. Thanks. You know. For the—” His hand twitches.

Lovett shrugs, slow and exaggerated. “Hey,” he says. “What are friends for?” Jon’s looking at him, slouched, head tilted slightly to one side, and Lovett thinks about reaching out to touch the corner of his mouth, the solid line of his jaw. It’d be easy. Four days shouldn’t be long enough to turn an action into a habit, but.

But maybe if it’s something you’ve wanted for years.

“You know your car’s still parked at the office,” he says instead, curling his fingers into his palm. “I guess Leo’s gonna be happy to go home.”

“Sure,” Jon says after a moment. “You know if Tommy’s prepped for the pod?”

“Probably should ask him,” Lovett says. “He has all your stuff. Come to think of it, he has your clothes. Where did yours come from?”

“Your closet,” Jon says. “Half the stuff in there used to be mine in the first place.”

Right. Lovett actually doesn’t recognize whatever Jon’s got on. He must’ve dug all the way down to the clothes Lovett never actually wears. “Well, glad the problem’s all been solved,” he says. “And it sounds like you won’t have to deal with it again for a while.”

“Lovett,” Jon says. His eyes flick down to Lovett’s hands. “Do you—”

Lovett stumbles back. “We should get to the office,” he says, turning away. “Look, I’m— I’m just gonna get Pundit.”

“Okay,” Jon says, and clears his throat. “Leo and I can wait in the car.”

———

Jon Favreau can’t keep a secret to save his life.

When they first met, Lovett used to think that Jon was making fun of him. Jon practically bled every emotion he felt; there was no way someone like that had survived this long in Washington. Lovett had watched for an ulterior motive behind all his words and an agenda in every laugh, waiting for the moment Jon dropped the mask, and never found it. Eventually he’d had to conclude, improbably, that the heart Jon wore so brightly on his sleeve wasn’t a decoy at all, and that was the same time he realized he was truly, royally fucked.

Jon was beautiful and brilliant and it was intoxicating, having all his attention focused on Lovett at once. And Lovett knew—had learned, early and well—that it could become addictive so easily, given half a chance. Jon was Lovett’s boss, and so straight Lovett could feel it in his teeth, and none of that had mattered, in the end.

So Lovett had quit his job and quit politics and come to Hollywood. He’d thought that would be enough, before Jon moved to LA and started a podcast, and Lovett found the real problem was that he would always let Jon crash through every boundary he drew up.

———

“Oh, good,” Tommy says when the two of them walk into the office. “Jon, I’ve got some paperwork for you to look over. How’re you feeling?”

Jon glances, inexplicably, at Lovett. “Fine,” he says, and unclips Leo from his lead. “Sorry about the— um, hope it wasn’t too much of a disruption.”

“Hey, better than the middle of election season,” Tommy says easily. “I think you only really freaked out Lovett. But you two have made up? It’s not gonna be a running plotline over this week’s ads?”

“Yeah,” Lovett says before Jon does. “Don’t even worry about it, Tommy.”

“The last time you said that, you yelled at us live on stage for going to dinner,” Tommy says, but he’s grinning. “C’mon, Jon.”

Jon looks sideways at Lovett again before he follows Tommy into a conference room. Lovett pulls his headphones over his ears and Pundit into his lap and pretends not to notice when they come back out.

———

The problem with trying to avoid Jon is that the guy never learned the art of repression. With Tommy, it’s either snarky Twitter fights or careful, polite avoidance for years; Jon wants it all out in words before anything else. It’s probably what made him such a good speechwriter for Obama, and what makes him such a pain in the ass everywhere else.

So, all things considered, two weeks isn’t bad, really.

It’s the snacks that get him. Lovett’s contemplating the latest round of NatureBox samples in the kitchen when Jon says, “Lovett,” from behind him.

He grabs a handful of packets at random and turns slowly. “Hey,” he says. “Now’s not a great time, actually, I have a—”

“Nothing?” Jon suggests. “Elijah says you’ve been in here for half an hour.”

“Well, Elijah is a snitch.”

“What are you, twelve?” Jon sounds exasperated. “You know I’ve been trying to talk to you.”

“Maybe I was being  _professional_ ,” Lovett says through his teeth. “Sorry I didn’t want to get yelled at about my personal deficiencies on company time.”

“Your what?” Jon says. “Listen, I’m trying to apologize, and you’re making it  _very_ hard.”

“What?” Lovett says, baffled. “Are we having the same conversation?”

Jon scrubs at his face with one hand and stares briefly up at the ceiling. “Christ,” he mutters. “Look, when I— um, when I shift—”

Jon’s going slowly pink, but he’s not budging from where he stands. Lovett wants to press him back and back until he’s out of Lovett’s reach. Lovett wants to pull him in and reach up until he can kiss him. Lovett wants a lot of things, because he’s never known how to stop, and Jon Favreau keeps proving him wrong on what he’s not allowed to have.

“The dog, it—” Jon goes on, stubbornly, “it doesn’t understand not asking for something it wants—”

“Jon,” Lovett says.

“—and I think I put you in, in a position where you felt like you had to—”

“ _Jon_ ,” Lovett says again.

“God, Lovett, will you let me  _finish_ — I swear you liked me better as a dog, Jesus, this is so—”

“I really,” Lovett says loudly, “need you to stop talking.”

Jon stops talking.

Lovett looks at Jon, the way he’s flushing and the way his throat is quivering, nervous, like he’s afraid of what Lovett’s going to say. He thinks about Jon, pressing his head into Lovett’s hands, trusting; about Jon doing the same thing, now, with a cracked open heart, because it’s the only thing Jon knows how to do.

“I didn’t feel like I had to,” Lovett says. “Do. Anything.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you know,” Lovett says. He takes a step forward. Abandons the snack packs on the counter and reaches up. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed that I’m also not, like, great at self-discipline when it comes to wanting things.”

His hand is curled at the nape of Jon’s neck now. Jon lets Lovett draw him down, slow, careful.

“Can I?” Jon says, quiet.

Lovett doesn’t bother answering. Easier, it turns out, to press his mouth to Jon’s, and feel his lips parting open for him.

**Author's Note:**

> short, quick, unbeta'd, but happy birthday, lucy! title tweaked from mary oliver's _wild geese_.


End file.
